Monday, November 26, 2012

This past week was of course Thanksgiving, and you would have thought that with eating at three different places, I could have just shown pictures from that. However, I either forgot to take the camera or the card that goes in the camera, so no pictures of delicious food.

I also didn't take pictures of me cleaning house, because NO ONE wants photos of me cleaning toilets.

A few months ago I went with my niece to a flea market where they had some baby gowns made from a onesie. She was going to buy one, but I told her that I could make one for practically nothing. Well, after seeing my niece on Friday night, I decided I better get busy, because I really think Lucy Ann isn't going to wait until Dec. 23.

I found instructions for this online, and then more or less did my own thing. One of my dear friends monogrammed it for me. It only took a couple of hours start to finish, and you'll notice I even have a matching hair bow up at the neck.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

This week's Sassy Cheryls Challenge on the blog was set by Sassy Jeni. With this past week having been Thanksgiving, it's the perfect time to show our thanks. Certainly I'm thankful to my neighbor and crafting buddy, especially for inviting my DH and me to her house to share in Thanksgiving with her family.

Thanksgiving Day was also my neighbor's birthday( I really think there's something wrong with doing all that cooking on your birthday), so it was a perfect reason to get my challenge card made early, because what would a birthday be without cake? I actually gave it to her on her birthday, I just haven't taken the time to blog it.

The image is called Avery Celebrates with Cake. She's colored with Copics, PrismaColor Pencils and Faber Castell Polychromos.

The digital paper is from Shery K Designs Party Time 20 Kit. The cupcakes and the sentiments are silhouette cut files.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

It's hard for me to believe that Sassy Cheryl has been nosing around for 100 weeks to see what folks have going on in their crafting life or in life in general. It's been 100 weeks of fun and getting acquainted and making new friends all over the world. I love seeing folks' cards, but I love even more getting a glimpse of where they live or what there every day life might entail. For sharing a part of your life with Sassy Cheryl, and with the rest of us that hang out at her SMT blog, you have the chance at winning a free Sassy Cheryl image, and oh are there ever some great ones in the Sassy Cheryl Store. I have to say, that as much fun as it is to win, I love checking in to see what folks have going on.

I know that one thing is for sure for all of us, every day is not just crafting. Life has a tendency to get in the way of even our best laid plans. That's been my week this week. It started out with trips to the airport in Birmingham on Monday and Tuesday. Monday was to take DD, DGD and MM back for their flight home, and Tuesday was to take my niece to the airport after a weekend visit to her parents. Once that was behind me, I thought the rest of the week was mine. NOT SO. Remember Robert Burns best laid plans?

My first project and the only one that was planned was to replace the pitiful paper screen I tacked to the wall, for use with my projector. For SCamp, I tacked some not so white newsprint up to make a screen. This would have been a super easy project if I could have found a 60" wide roll up shade(the perfect projection screen), but it seems they don't make them anymore. Instead I had to take a 37 1/2" wide one off the roll, add grommets and then some of those 3M hooks. It works, and will be great when I'm demonstrating something with the computer, so folks aren't having to look over my shoulder and follow me.

Today is the opening day of Deer season with a rifle, and my DH along with brothers, nephews and great nephews are covering the deer stands in the "bottom"(property along Tibbee Creek owned by DH and his siblings). With 11 stands, and a lot more hunters than that, it's especially important that folks know whose hunting and where. DH had converted a chalkboard in my kitchen that we've been using, but this year he built another stand, and there was NO ROOM to add to it. So with an old bulletin board with a metal plate, I created a new hunting board that is now hanging in my garage. It's the check in point before they go hunting. I sprayed the board several times with Blackboard Spray thus creating a blackboard surface that can be erased for their names. I then did a Print and Cut with my Cameo of all the stands by name(the stories of how they got their names is a story in and of itself). I glued them to the board and then Modge Podged(humidity is tough here) over just them(you should be able to see the lines). I still have to add a chalk holder(an old fork with the inner two twines twirled up, but DH has tied the chalk to a string and nailed the string to the board in the meantime. There's even room at the bottom to write in portable stands.

I thought that was going to be the only project outside my plans, but again I was proved wrong. BFF came by on Wednesday with a happy for me from their last road trip. I was finally able to give her her birthday card(made on time, but not mailed or delivered) and told her I was still pondering her gift. She had a project for me, that she assured me would count for her birthday and her Christmas. See I'm already liking how this is sounding. She is an unbelievable cook(my SCamp buddies can attest to this), and if you think I'm non-stop, you should see her go. She has spent the summer putting up pickles, preserves and jellies to give away in between cooking lunches and taking to the ladies at the nursing home and cakes to any and everyone. What she wanted was lid labels custom made for her. Did you see my eyes light up? Of course you did, because you know I immediately thought of my Cameo and Print and Cut. I worked up the basic label, and then only had to change the product in them. I designed them while watching(or should I say listening to TV on Wednesday night). It took me less than 3 hours to print and cut over 500 of them. I still have to run most of them through my Xyron sticker maker(ran out of tape), but that's something I can do while the TV is blasting away.

Finally this week I got in an order of PrismaColor Pencils and I have some Faber Castell's on the way. I needed a way to store them, so when I was at Walmart this week, I found this metal jar holder with a carrying handle and these perfectly sized pencil cups. I created dividers in the cups and sorted somewhat by colors. I have two for the Prismas and two for the Fabers. I probably won't be adding a lot more colors so this should give me plenty of space. I think it will work, don't you?

I did finally get to create a card yesterday and even got it blogged before this post, so maybe I'm back on schedule. If you made it through all of this, you're probably wishing I'd just post pictures and shut up with the yakking. At any rate, that's my week thus far. Now I was up at 4 this morning cooking the Opening Day breakfast for the hunters( a tradition that I can't seem to get out of), and now I'm on my way to TM to play.

Friday, November 16, 2012

This week on the Sassy Cheryl's Challenge Blog, Sassy Jeni has set the challenge for a belated birthday project. Since I am forevermore running behind, I'll be sticking this card in my stash, since it's not a matter of if but when I'll be late with a card.(don't you love this run on sentence) I hated like everything missing last week's challenge, but I'm back and even earlier than Monday afternoon at 3 p.m. What's Up With That?

For this week's card, I chose this image from the Sassy Cheryl's store called Samantha Cops an Attitude. Can you really blame her, when she knows she's messed up and missed a birthday. You are going to be surprised to hear that I colored this image with PrismaColor Pencils. Sassy Judy of the SC DT gave us all coloring lessons at SCamp a few weeks ago. That said, I had to wait for pencils to come in and lots of water has flowed under the bridge since those instructions. Any coloring errors are mine and mine alone.

The papers are from Shery K Designs Party Time 20 digital kit, and the sketch is from the Operation Write Home site.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Here at my house, there's a lull in the storm of a family visit. Our oldest DD, her daughter and younger DD's son, MM flew into Birmingham last Thursday for a long weekend. They've been here and keeping me and DH both busy with visiting and projects, but they've gone out to dinner with some family and DH and I opted to stay at home. While they're gone, I'm going to get my SMT post done for the Sassy Cheryl's Show Me Thursday Blog.

One of the things that we had to do was get MM dirt and flint from the "Bottom" for a presentation he has to do on Tuesday when he gets back to school on Native Americans. His presentation is on he and his Grandpa searching for arrowheads. This is something they do every time he comes for a visit, so it's a good thing for his project. He has to take a paper sack with 4 items that are in his presentation. This necessitated a trip to fill a bag with dirt.

Another thing on DD#2's lists of things for us to do was to go and see his Great Aunt Boo and get a picture with her. She's DH's oldest sister and sibling, and her DH passed away recently.

DGD is expecting a baby boy the end of January, and she had some projects that she wanted us to work on. The first was a canvas wall hanging that will also hang on the door at the hospital. I let her do all the painting and gluing. My job was just to cut out all the pieces and help her with the layout. I love the way it turned out and it matches her nursery, which is a monster theme.

Then yesterday she showed me a canvas she saw on Etsy with a saying that she loved, so I spent the better part of today getting it done. Had to stencil the letters on using a dauber and several black pigment inkpads. I love the way this one turned out.

We head back to the airport tomorrow to drop them off, and then lucky me, I get to go again on Tuesday to take my niece to the airport for her trip home. Her DM is having foot surgery, and her DF, thinks since they're putting the DM to sleep, he might better hang around. It's okay, because I'm meeting a dear friend for lunch and a visit.

I've only given you a bit of what was happening here, but needless to say, it was enough. Now let's see what you're working on and be sure to post it on the Show Me Thursday Blog for a chance at a free image. This is a true WIN WIN situation.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

It's almost too late to post an SMT post for the week, but I think I'll just squeak under the wire today.
I mean how easy is it to take a picture of what you've got going on in your life, blog it and enter it in the SMT challenge on the Sassy Cheryl Blog(not the challenge blog) for a chance of a free image from Sassy Cheryl. Hey I won last week, so if I can win, anybody can win.

I could have taken a picture of the housecleaning I've been doing, but who really cares about that? Instead I want to show you what I've been doing with my Cameo.

When we were SCamping, Judy of JDK fame showed us how to use scalloped circles to cut a cloud template in cardstock. She said it was wear out over time, but it would be super easy to create another one. Cec, was interested in cutting masks for stamping, so while at Scamp we cut some chicken wire masks using mylar and transparency material. They worked fine for Judy, but Cec thought they needed to be thicker. Yesterday when I was out I bought a 3 pack of blank stencil material at Walmart in the hobby paint section.

Today, I decided to have a go at cutting a cloud template out of the material. First thing I did was open my Silhouette Studio Designer Edition software and and bring in two different scalloped circle patterns that I had downloaded from the Silhouette store.

Next I duplicated them spacing them in different way, drawing a rectangle and then merging it all so that I had a template with two different sided scallops.

For the cutting of the stencil material, I set my Media type to Custom Media, speed to 2, blade depth to 10(be sure you change it to that on the actual blade), check the cutting mat and double cut blocks.

I placed the stencil material on my Silhouette mat and taped it down so that it would be secure and then proceeded to cut. I used the same blade that we had cut a half dozen mylar templates from, plus some paper and even then with the depth and double cut, the template popped right out.

Here's a picture of clouds I made using the template.

And here's a picture of the finished template with ink on both sides. It cleaned up uber easy with a baby wipe. Don't think this template will be wearing out any time soon.

I LOVE MY CAMEO. In the words of Jeanne Robertson, "IT'S FAAB-U-LOUS!"

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Well it's been a couple of weeks since I participated in a challenge, but I'm back and glad to be here. Even better, I found out that starting next week, you have to use a Sassy Cheryls image in the Sassy Cheryls Challenge. HOORAY! I'm behind that 100%. If you think about it, it's the only thing to do. After all, if an artist is generous enough to give away a free image on HER challenge blog, isn't it only polite that you use one of her images to begin with. It's kind of like that old saying "You got to dance with the one what brung you."

This week's Sassy Cheryl's Challenge is Round About meaning do anything that isn't square or rectangular. For my challenge this week, I needed a birthday card for my BFF, Bess. I'm a wee bit late, but she won't hold it against me. I used this image called Sassy Sally and Her Oversized Birthday Cake. I've colored her with my Copics.

The cupcake paper is a from a digital kit from Shery K Designs called Cupcakes. I created all shapes with my Silhouette Software and print and cut all parts. The rolled roses are thanks to a tutorial from my good friend Judy at Sassy Camp last week. I don't have it perfected, but I'm getting there.

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About Me

I live in Columbus, Mississippi and as my grandson would tell you, "I am a person. I have my life and a ticket." Along with being a person, I also am a child of God, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, an aunt and a friend. I have way to many interests if that's possible, but I figure they'll keep my mind working. I started this blog as a way to support Operation Write Home.